Public roads primarily facilitate motor vehicle traffic. Vehicle parking is ordinarily offered as a secondary benefit incident to vehicle throughway. Consequently, parking is an inherently limited public resource. Within an urban environment, local government generally regulates parking at curbside, on public roads, in municipal parking lots, and on other public property through a regulatory scheme that both provides revenue generation and promotes public safety and health. Commonly, public parking is regulated through a scheme of fees assessed through parking meters for fixed time period parking, by issuance of permits for residential, commercial, or special use parking, and through zoning that regulates permissible uses of property, including parking. Parking on privately-owned property is often offered through hourly fees or some form of parking contract.
Meeting the parking needs of motorists requires more than simply finding a balance between supply and demand, yet the capability to efficiently allocate and manage on-street parking remains elusive, even when parking needs are significant, recurring, and known ahead of time. For instance, urban parking spaces characteristically undergo periods of widely skewed demand and utilization, with low demand and light use in some periods, often during the night, and heavy demand and use at other times. As well, merely finding available parking is only the start, as subsequent occupancy of a parking space must also be permissible under applicable rules. Parking regulations, though, are often complex and confusing, with time limits on parking in residential and business zones, parking enforcement undertaken during working hours in neighborhood zones, parking enforcement of loading zone rules and rules governing parking near fire hydrants occurring at all hours, and exceptions to parking regulations made to accommodate select holidays, depending upon the municipality.
Consequently, the impact of regulated control over on-street parking affects all motorists, as well as urban residents, local businesses, and other parties that use or rely upon on-street parking, such as businesses that offer valet parking services to their customers. Drivers seeking a place to park their motor vehicles are most immediately impacted by regulated parking control. Looking for a parking space wastes time, contributes to traffic congestion, creates frustration, and generates pollution, while violating parking rules, such as by allowing a parking meter to expire, can result in parking tickets, fines, or towing. Motorists therefore need ways to more conveniently and efficiently determine on-street parking availability and ensure parking regulation compliance once parked.
Valet parking services offer motorists with an alternative to finding parking themselves, which can be particularly helpful in an urban environment. A parking valet is responsible for finding a parking space for a customer's car and often also for retrieving the car upon the customer's return. Typically, valet parking might be provided for a special event, such as a black tie gala, or on a recurring basis by a local business, such as a restaurant, bar, or retail store. Businesses sometimes employ their own valets or contract with a valet parking service. The valets park their customers' vehicles from a drop-off location that is generally located convenient to the business's entrance, which the customer is expected to patronize. Although the customers avoid the hassles of self-parking, valets still face the same problems of locating available on-street parking if reserved parking spaces for valet parking only are unavailable, especially where parking lots are scarce. Thus, many valet services only operate in the evening or during off-peak times to increase parking opportunities for their valets. Conventional valet parking services solutions focus on vehicle location and retrieval and fail to adequately alleviate fundamental concerns by valets over finding suitable parking for their customers' cars, particularly in urban settings.
For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,710,557, issued Jan. 20, 1998, to Schuette, discloses a computerized valet parking system. A vehicle tracking system has accounting and operational data gathering functions. A first data transceiver inputs and retrieves a first set of vehicle identification data, and a second data transceiver located at a remote vehicle parking facility inputs and retrieves a second set of vehicle identification data. The first and second sets of vehicle identification data are stored by a central processor and the second data transceiver outputs vehicle pickup data for retrieval purposes in response to a vehicle retrieval command from the central processor, thereby allowing a customer to remain within a building until his vehicle has been retrieved.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0106514, published Apr. 29, 2010, to Cox, discloses travel-related services provided via a satellite digital audio radio system (SDARS). In one embodiment, information on parking garages near a certain location and their available parking spaces is provided as a parking data service to users of SDARS. A parking service may be provided to devices that incorporate a navigation system or as a companion to a traffic data service. The parking service can involve a variety of components, including a parking server, a parking console, a parking protocol, a parking user interface, and parking provisioning. The parking service may provide any suitable information about the parking garages in a garage map or a garage list, such as garage services, including whether valet parking is available.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,805,239, issued Sep. 28, 2010, to Kaplan et al., discloses a method of operating a navigation system to provide parking availability information, including any amenities provided, such as valet parking services. A destination location is obtained and a parking facility proximate the destination location is identified. Historic parking availability information for the parking facility is provided based on past parking availability patterns. A route from an origin to the parking facility may be calculated and guidance for following the route provided through a navigation system.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0309760, published Dec. 17, 2009, to Chew, discloses an apparatus and method for locating, identifying, and tracking vehicles in a parking area. The occupancy status of parking spaces is provided by processing images to provide information regarding locations and numbers of empty and occupied spaces, and guidance information to locate each space. Additionally, live parking lot images can be displayed in a digital map to assist users, such as drivers, customer service personnel, valet services attendants, and others, to visually locate and identify a vehicle of interest.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0276236, published Nov. 5, 2009, to Adamczyk et al., discloses implementing a vehicle locator service. Location identification information indicates the presence of a vehicle at a parking pace and an occupancy record is created that includes object identification information and location identification information. The parking area may provide value-added services, such valet parking. A request to locate a vehicle during an exiting process is received. The location identification information from the occupancy record associated with the object identification information is retrieved and the location identification information of the parking space is presented to the operator. The location identification information is received via a radio frequency identifier associated with the parking space. The parking location may be reserved for preferred customers, such that the automatic identification information provided via the radio frequency identifier includes a unique code that distinguishes the location's occupant from other users.
U.S. patent Application Publication No. 2005/0280555, published Sep. 22, 2005, to Warner, VI, discloses dynamically managing parking, which includes the use of an intelligent software engine that interfaces with a wireless mesh network of multi-channel communication devices. A parking transceiver mesh network node located proximate to one or more parking spaces provides accurate and current data to a database of available parking spaces. Parking availability algorithms are used to analyze this data to select optimal parking spaces for drivers and predict future availability. The databases may include all subscriber information for parking services, including valet services.
Conventional parking solutions typically focus on either determining availability of parking spaces for valet parking use, or identifying where valet parking services are provided. Therefore, there is a need for equipping valet parking services with a comprehensive set of services that allow more flexible types of valet parking, instead of simply a convenient alternative to self-parking.